Agriculture
Manuel Peña
Regional Dairy Educator
920-449-0725 I manuel.pena@wisc.edu
Extension Dairy Educator Manuel Peña Contributes to the structure and processes of dairy producers, conservation and financial groups and other dairy professionals, enhancing their ability to function effectively. Supports informed decision making by providing research-based information to achieve their objectives.
Continuous Needs Assessment in Sheboygan County
Discussions with dairy farmers, managers, workforce, and interns at different farms or events to build a holistic view of the current state of the county, while identifying common challenges, strengths, and opportunities for improvement within the local dairy industry.
Areas of Need Determined by Assessments:
- Safety/good practices
- Communication/language
- Calving and Nutrition Management
- Public Perception
New connections and cultivation of existing relationships took place at agricultural events and farm visits. Besides in person activities, the educator has been involved in the creation of bilingual educational materials such as articles, newsletters, and webinars.
- Basics of Nutrition. Article Series
- Dry Matter Explained
- Fiber ExplainedProtein Explained
- Body Condition Score Explained
- Articles – Collaborations (among others)
- Best Practices for Roasting Soybeans
- Beyond BMR: Securing the Future of High-Quality Corn Silage
- Dairy Feed Inventory Management
- Feeding for Milk Protein
- Navigating Low Colostrum Yields
- Troubleshoot Milk Fat Depression
- Presentations and others
- Clean Farm Families
- Hosting the BDI
- Article for the agriculturist
- FDL Forage council
Regional impacts in Sheboygan
- Bovi-News. Bilingual statewide newsletter, focused on educating the dairy farm workers.
- Partnered on design, topics and content
- Translation of information available on the UW Extension website.
- Addressing current local issues and events
- Wisconsin Bilingual Dairy Podcast Project
- “ProHand” Bilingual Dairy Project
- Research project with the USDA about proper animal handling. Material is ready. We are running pilots to finalize details.
- Heifer survey
- Trying to figure out how much it is to raise a heifer. Last time it was done was 10 years ago. We provide reports by farm for participants.
- Forward Safety toolbox
- We ran a pilot test on Skid Steer and Animal Handling (Dairy cows) and now we are building other modules.
- Milk Quality from the Udder World
- Program developed by Carolina Pinzon. All the Dairy Farms from Sheboygan County were invited to participate.
- Designing an Agroecological Transformation in East-Central Wisconsin using Collaborative Landscape Design.
- Calving Management and Rumen development program.
- Representative Dairy Meeting